My Brother

On the night of Sunday, October 5, 2008 my younger brother David passed away. He was only 31 years old.

Never in my life has anything ever prepared me for this happening and I don't have the words to describe the devastating loss that I feel. I can only imagine how my parents feel. No parent ever expects or wants to outlive their child. I'm so worried about them. I'm doing everything that I can for them, but I'm not sure that it's enough. Seeing what they're going through, it just breaks my heart even more every time I look at them.

Since he was my little brother (even though he was bigger and taller than me), I thought that I would be looking out for him for the rest of my life. I used to find myself worrying about him being all alone once my parents and, then later on, I were gone. None of us ever thought that we would outlive him.

When I was a teenager, I'd scoff whenever my mother said that someday the two of us would be close. After all, we were complete opposites without much in common. Once I hit my teen years, we didn't spend too much time together or interact too much even though we lived under the same roof. Maybe that's a bit normal for teenagers, with the older brother not wanting his little brother to tag along. I don't know. I know that even before Dave died, that I wish that things had been a little bit different back then.

I can honestly say, that I feel that my brother was a better person than I am. He had an innocence to him that most of us lose as we become adults. He had such a big heart. He never ever did anything to hurt anybody. On the rare occasions where he'd get mad, he wouldn't stay that way for long. Because Dave was so quiet and shy, some people thought he was kind of weird. I don't even think that most of the people that did know him ever really got to know him. I feel so lucky that I did get to know him better than I did while we were growing up, and that I spent a lot of time with him over the last few years.

I think of some of his quirks and habits and just the way that he was. Depending on my mood swing at that given moment I either start laughing or I break down and cry. Sometimes both. Every time that I'm talking about him and I realize that I have to refer to him in the past tense is like a dagger in my heart. I think of the things he'll never get to do or see.

Part of me wonders if writing about this is an appropriate thing to do. After all, my brother was a very private person. I just think it's such a shame that more of the world never got to know him. I suppose it's a bit of selfishness on my part that I want to share just a tiny bit of how special he was to me with other people. I could go on and on talking about him forever. There are so many things that I could say about him and things that I wish I had said to him.

I can't say that I'm religious or that I've believed in any sort of afterlife. I really hope that I've been wrong, and that there is something else after we die. That someday I can see him again. I know that for the rest of my life, not a day will go by where I don't think about him. I loved my brother and he meant the world to me.